LITL: Full of It

Last week I posted about something my pastor said about prayer and missionaries. As I said in that post, this greatly convicted me on my daily walk with the Lord. I wanted to further explore this as I work to realign myself with daily communing with God and seeking his will.

The same Sunday my pastor said this, he spoke on a passage from Ephesians:

"For this reason I kneel before the Father from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. I pray that He may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power in the inner man through His Spirit, and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know the Messiah’s love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us— to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen." (Ephesians 3:14-21)

As I read through this passage, so many things stand out to me. I picture Paul kneeling, not just beside his bed before bedtime, but on his face before the Lord as he intercede for the Christians of that day. Do I also come to God in such humility? I was struck by something author Francis Chan said in his book Crazy Love. He instructed the reader to stop praying. "Stop talking at God," but just to start listening. Wow. That will certainly change your daily time with God.


Paul prays for the "inner man." On the same lines as humility, Paul recognized the vulnerability with which one must come to God. I want to open myself fully, to the deepest parts of my being, so that God can do a complete work in me as he has promised. "I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." (Philippians 1:6) I am reminded of Samuel among the sons of Jesse, as God commanded him to look where God sees, the inner most of ourselves. 

Finally, for today, the part of this scripture that especially touches my heart is Paul's desire for us to "filled with all the fullness of God." My pastor explained that the actually tense of this verb in the greek would translate literally to "to be being filled constantly." 

I have been so guilty lately of shoving God to the side. I have treated him as a spectator of my daily housework and holiday preparations, or as a passenger along for the ride as I run my errands. I want to put him back in the driver's seat. Rather than have God fill the spaces between the laundry, the dishes, the baking, the traveling, the grocery shopping, etc; I want God to be the only thing that fills me, fills me fully. Then all the rest will flow from that "love that surpasses knowledge." 

Are you constantly being filled and refilled with the things of God or is he just stuffed into the spaces in between? Do you need to stop talking AT God, and possibly listn for what he has to say to you today?